Australia happy with 100-over practice

Ricky Ponting thought his side's 50 overs in the field were valuable © Getty Images

Australia's inability to bowl Zimbabwe out within 50 overs in their opening World Cup warm-up was not a concern for Ricky Ponting. Zimbabwe worked their way to 184 for 7 - well short of Australia's 290 - but Ponting said the practice held his team in good stead.

Australia face England in a second warm-up match in St Vincent on Friday and England's routing of Bermuda for 45 could work in Australia's favour. "Ours was a better workout than they [England] got," Ponting told AFP. "At this stage of the tournament most teams are looking to get some quality time in the middle and we got through 100 overs today.

"In one-day cricket on wickets like that, which are really slow and low, it can be quite difficult to bowl teams out. I wasn't surprised today and it was probably more beneficial to us that we didn't."

Shane Watson and Michael Clarke each posted 80s and Ponting was pleased with the run-scoring effort. "Our batting was good in pretty difficult conditions to bat in and I thought our bowling was pretty good as well," Ponting told AAP."We put a couple of catches down and missed a couple of run outs so we've obviously got some work to do there. From where we are in the tournament, that was a good hit-out for us."

Prosper Utseya, Zimbabwe's captain, was also disappointed with his side's three dropped catches, which reprieved Australia's three top-scorers. "We could have kept them to 240 if we had taken all our chances," Utseya said. "We let them off the hook a little bit."

Ponting also felt that his unheralded collection of slow bowlers will seize their World Cup opportunity and make light of the absence of Shane Warne. "We've got to make him relax and get him to bowl the way he can bowl," said Ponting of Brad Hogg, the chinaman bowler, who returned 0 for 36 in his 8 overs. "In the last three or four overs against Zimbabwe he did that. He's Australia's best one-day spin bowler. There'll be a lot of opportunities for slow bowlers in this tournament.

"I thought [Brad] Hodge (1-26 off 6 overs) did a good job for us," added Ponting. "We've got Michael Clarke who will be able to do a job for us at some stage. If we get Andrew Symonds back I hope he's going to be a big part of that slow-bowling brigade. We feel that we've got basically all the bases covered on what we need in a World Cup."